How Can You Not Be on Facebook?! A Digital Etnographic Exploratory Study of Portuguese Users

Paula Cordeiro

Last modified: 2011-07-06

Abstract

Regardless of age, people are living their lives through social networks with Facebook leading the way: how much can one know about someone else's life using Facebook pages, that is, one's daily activities, thoughts and ideas, through the activity of sharing content and status updates? The main objective of this exploratory study is to find mass mingling trends among a sample of Portuguese adult Facebook users (N=18) and further, to find how much can one know about one's life using this social network, to conclude that despite stereotypes of online creating isolation, people are living large parts of their lives online through social networks using also mobile Internet access to socialize or simply stay in touch.